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Purpose: Corneal endothelial cells, non-regenerative in nature, face irreversible damage due to dystrophy or intraocular surgery, with transplantation as the sole available remedy. While assessing endothelial cell density via a specular microscope is a common practice, evaluating cell function remains elusive. We describe fundamental experiments in this proof of concept study that leverage our innovative apoptosis visualization technology, Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells (DARC), to target endothelial cells. DARC employs a fluorescent Annexin A5 molecule to label phosphatidylserine (PS), a phospholipid that is externalized on the cell membrane's outer layer during early apoptosis and cell stress. As stress-related PS externalization is not confined to retinal cells and spans all cells, it was applied to corneal endothelial cells of rodents to investigate the application of DARC in assessing cell stress.

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